Dempsey: No Plans to Close Military Commissaries

WASHINGTON, Jan. 28, 2014 - Contrary to some news reports, there are no plans
to close military commissaries, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
said.

But Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey added that the budget environment is forcing
the department to look for savings anywhere possible.

The chairman first addressed this issue during his Facebook town hall meeting
last month.

The Joint Staff did not ask the Defense Commissary Agency to come up with a
contingency plan to close 100 percent of U.S. commissaries, senior military
officials said. Officials did ask the Defense Commissary Agency for a range of
options, including how the system would operate with reduced or no taxpayer
subsidies, the chairman said, noting that military exchanges work on this system
and that the same potential exists with commissaries. In the most recent year,
the Defense Commissary Agency received $1.5 billion in subsidies.

"But we haven't made any decisions," the chairman said. "We've got to drive
toward greater efficiencies, and this is just one of the potential areas."

The Bipartisan Budget Act, which President Barack Obama signed earlier this
month, alleviated some of the sequester pressure on the department through
fiscal year 2015. But the Budget Reduction Act of 2011 is still law, and
sequester-level spending cuts will be back in play in fiscal 2016, unless
Congress changes the law.

Still, the chairman said, the department must find ways to ensure that
service members are prepared to perform their missions.

"We're well aware of the need for acquisition reform, as well as the need to
reduce unnecessary infrastructure and retire unneeded weapons systems," Dempsey
said. "All of the institutional reforms are intended to produce a single
outcome: the best-trained and best-equipped service men and women on the
planet."